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Voidbinding chart in WoK Prime? (minor spoilers)


KandraAllomancer

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I feel like one of the Ten Fools for not seeing this before.

WoK Prime has the Double Eye chart on the twelfth page, showing ten Essences and ten Forces:

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Way-of-Kings-Prime-by-Brandon-Sanderson_web.pdf

I treated it as an early version of the Surgebinding chart, with Forces being an early attempt at Surges.

However, after looking at it again for one of my new theories, I realized something: the topology of the chart is slightly off. The two Essences at the center are not connected to any Force. I doesn't look like a Surgebinding chart, but it's the same as the Voidbinding chart, just upside-down, with time manipulation / futuresight at the top.

We know that Brandon cannibalizes a lot of elements from early books into later ones. Is it possible that the whole Magical Knight Magic (I don't remember the name, sorry) from WoK Prime became Voidbinding? That the Forces are the "set of abilities" Khriss calls Voidbindings? Something like a set of fundamental forces alternative to the Surges?

There is actually one clue: in WoK Prime, using the Forces hurts the users somehow, which would indicate it might be an end-negative magic system. And we have this WoB from 2016, which possibly refers to Voidbinding:

Quote

Herald (paraphrased)

Have we seen any of the system or the world that has end-negative magic system other than Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is one more end-negative magic system and you have seen minor hints of it.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

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14 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

it's the same as the Voidbinding chart, just upside-down, with time manipulation / futuresight at the top.

I don't really follow how you go to that conclusion. Yes the essences of Flesh and Wood are switch but almost all other are at the same place except Crystal and Fire wich are switched too

19 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

There is actually one clue: in WoK Prime, using the Forces hurts the users somehow, which would indicate it might be an end-negative magic system. And we have this WoB from 2016, which possibly refers to Voidbinding:

From what we've seen of Voidbinding (Renarin's future Sight and Sja's Enlightenment) it doesn't seem to be end-negative

Sja' Enlightenment does seem like something you could describe as "manipulating the force of thought" so you could be onto something

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3 minutes ago, mathiau said:

I don't really follow how you go to that conclusion. Yes the essences of Flesh and Wood are switch but almost all other are at the same place except Crystal and Fire wich are switched too

Yeah, you're right. I was looking at the Truthwatcher/Bondsmith equivalents only

4 minutes ago, mathiau said:

From what we've seen of Voidbinding (Renarin's future Sight and Sja's Enlightenment) it doesn't seem to be end-negative

In WoK Prime the powers only hurt users in a visible way if they use it too much. Renarin is also a Surgebinder, which might be a factor here - even if he is hurt by his futuresight somehow, he is eventually healed by Stormlight anyway

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Just now, KandraAllomancer said:

In WoK Prime the powers only hurt users in a visible way if they use it too much. Renarin is also a Surgebinder, which might be a factor here - even if he is hurt by his futuresight somehow, he is eventually healed by Stormlight anyway

We don't know if Renarin's a Surgebinder. Your point about Stormlight healing does stand though

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 21.02.2021 at 8:40 PM, Frustration said:

I like that, it also has it's conections to Yelig-nar's wind, and confirmed Foresight.

There's also one more interesting thing about Yelig-nar - the bonding process. For some unknown reason it seems to require an amethyst, associated with Willshapers in Surgebinding. In the Eppelion chart though, the Order occupying Willshaper's spot and Essence has Adherence, which is probably an early version of Adhesion, potentially explaining the role in bonding spren. Venli also gets Adhesion-like powers due to Envoyform, which might or might not be a nod to what we see the chart. Although, as I realized, the right and left part  of the chart has two Orders getting the same one Force, which seems hard to explain.

Edited by KandraAllomancer
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10 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

There's also one more interesting thing about Yelig-nar - the bonding process. For some unknown reason it seems to require an amethyst, associated with Willshapers in Surgebinding. In the Eppelion chart though, the Order occupying Willshaper's spot and Essence has Adherence, which is probably an early version of Adhesion, potentially explaining the role in bonding spren. Venli also gets Adhesion-like powers due to Envoyform, which might or might not be a nod to what we see the chart. Although, as I realized, the right and left part  of the chart has two Orders getting the same one Force, which seems hard to explain.

Adherence is a specific form of friction (and one Lift have proven she could use in Edgedancer) so it was an early version of Abrasion, the early form of Adhesion (=pressure) was Wind. On the other hand: Awakening

We must be carefull when using the positions of thing on that chart, some Essences have been displaced (Foil/Metal not being one of them) and it's probably the same thing for some Surges (Voids?)

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Ah, I'm not gonna spoil anything but I'm fairly sure we see an end-negative system in Elantris. 
Imo it'd make a lot more sense that he was referring to that than say void binding. 

That being said I do like the idea of him cannibalising the individual forces as the abilities of the Voidbringers. I'd be hesistant to look for too many clues in WOK tho, from my understanding he's really changed a lot since thing.

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Just now, Harkain said:

Ah, I'm not gonna spoil anything but I'm fairly sure we see an end-negative system in Elantris. 
Imo it'd make a lot more sense that he was referring to that than say void binding. 

That being said I do like the idea of him cannibalising the individual forces as the abilities of the Voidbringers. I'd be hesistant to look for too many clues in WOK tho, from my understanding he's really changed a lot since thing.

Every magic system on Elantris is end-positive. Yes, even Dakhor I know it's surprising but it doesn't work like Hemalurgy at all.

(It's the RoW More, Magic and Cosmere subforum, you're allowed unmarked spoils for everything in the Cosmere except Sequel of the Dusk and Dragonsteel Prime :))

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1 hour ago, mathiau said:

Adherence is a specific form of friction (and one Lift have proven she could use in Edgedancer) so it was an early version of Abrasion, the early form of Adhesion (=pressure) was Wind. On the other hand: Awakening

I mean, technically adherence and adhesion are synonyms (at least according to synonyms.com :)). I think it's entirely possible that Wind is the pressure part of Adhesion, while Adherence covers sticking things/surfaces together as well as Abrasion. As for Awakening, WoK Prime clearly indicates that it is (spoiler)

Spoiler

very similar to the Surge of Transformation

 

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56 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Every magic system on Elantris is end-positive. Yes, even Dakhor I know it's surprising but it doesn't work like Hemalurgy at all.

Yeah, it all draws from the Dor. (Fun fact, Brandon doesn't even actually always consider the Selish magics to be separate systems from one another at all, just variants in the way Surgebinding has multiple variants.)

Not that this is necessarily even a particularly useful categorization.

Quote

Questioner

So for the Old Magic, in this classification system of end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative, where would that fall under?

Brandon Sanderson

So, almost every magic in the cosmere is end-positive, almost every magic is relying upon an external source of Investiture to power it. So that phrasing is mostly more relevant to Scadrial than anywhere else, because that concept is how I'm dealing with things like the laws of thermodynamics, and even what they call end-neutral is relying a little bit on the power of Investiture to facilitate. So even an end-neutral magic system as they define it on Scadrial is actually not end-neutral. What you get put in you get out, but the power is facilitating that transfer… So that phrasing is kind of a... Take that as a science on.. Scadrial that does not extrapolate well, and may not even be 100% accurate.

Moderator

That would have been a great thing to know before we did the cosmere magic panel. *laughter*

Brandon Sanderson

I look at it as, is an Investiture externally powering the magic, and if you look at Allomancy, yes it is. You are drawing that power out. Feruchemy, you are putting Investiture in from your own body, it's your energy transferring to Investiture, which is being stored, which you are then drawing out, and things like that. But that changing forms is facilitated by the magic. Whereas you're stealing stuff with-- So you could look, for instance at the magic on Nalthis, you could look at that one as being-- as kind of working as end-negative, meaning "I am taking it away from someone else", or end-positive depending on if you're the one receiving it or not. So again, it's a phrasing that can be useful as a tool but doesn't scale well to the other magics.

JordanCon 2016 (April 23, 2016)

Though Brandon does occasionally use the term:

Quote

Herald (paraphrased)

Have we seen any of the system or the world that has end-negative magic system other than Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is one more end-negative magic system and you have seen minor hints of it.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)
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On 2.03.2021 at 2:45 PM, Harkain said:

That being said I do like the idea of him cannibalising the individual forces as the abilities of the Voidbringers. I'd be hesistant to look for too many clues in WOK tho, from my understanding he's really changed a lot since thing.

That is a very real possibility, but, on the other hand, the original Epellion Forces seem to correspond nicely (at least better than Surges, in my opinion) to the powers of the Unmade:

Time - shared by all Unmade, not tied to any specific one

Wind - Yelig-nar, based on being called Blightwind

Movement - assuming that Movement is more or less the Transportation Surge (which we see in WoK Prime), Moelach would fit, as he grants visions "at the transition point between realms"

Energy - Nergaoul gives people the strength and ferocity to fight beyond the point where they would give up. He was also imprisoned in a ruby, and Energy is Connected to the Essence of Fire

Decay - Chemoarish, based on being called Dustmother

Life - Re-Shephir creates Midnight Essences that imitate living creatures

Thought - Dai-Gonarthis can apparently consume emotions, possibly leading to the sociopathic thinking that characterizes Moash or Nale

Adherence - Ba-Ado-Mishram was able to Connect to the (almost) whole Singer species

Awakening - what we know from WoK Prime

Spoiler

that it is more or less Transformation, but with more Spiritual rather than Cognitive overtones

matches Sja-anat's Enlightening quite well

Stasis - Ashertmarn induces inaction by causing people to indulge in excess

Edited by KandraAllomancer
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